Fence made of silt that sits in harbor has been breached, TEPCO admits, sparking further concern of ocean contamination.<\/i><\/p>\n
In the latest in a series of mishaps to hit the crisis-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, a radiation-stopping “fence” around the reactors has developed a hole, plant operator TEPCO admitted on Thursday [26 Sep 2013].<\/p>\n
Fences made of earth and sand sit in the harbor next to the plant<\/a> and were erected to help contain radioactive material from flowing into the ocean.\u00a0 They “are suspended from floats and anchored with weights on the seafloor,” the Japan Times<\/i> explains<\/a>.<\/p>\n One of the fences that sits next to still-intact reactors five and six was found to be breached, sparking further worry about the amount of radioactive contamination heading into the ocean.<\/p>\n TEPCO has struggled to contain the “emergency without end<\/a>” at Fukushima since the disaster began to unfold in March of 2011. An unsustainable contaminated water-storage system plagued by a series of leaks<\/a>, soaring radiation levels<\/a> in groundwater that head into the ocean, and high levels of radiation found in fish<\/a> have catalyzed widespread resistance to nuclear power and raised international alarm<\/a>.<\/p>\n As out of control<\/a> as the situation seems, one expert has warned that it may actually be “much worse<\/a>” than claimed.\u00a0 Also, long-time anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman warned last week<\/a> that a plan to “remove more than 1300 spent fuel rods from a badly damaged pool perched 100 feet in the air” risked putting the “hand of global nuclear disaster… painfully close to midnight.”<\/p>\n This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License<\/i><\/p>\n